Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

A double dose of stats and reports, having been both busy and away from home for most of the time since June, and having personally had very limited input to editorial decisions over that time. Particular kudos to Fiona and Richard for carrying most of the editing load for the last month or so when both Margo and I have been essentially absent apart from very occasional dropping in, and to Hamish and to David Curry for support to them. As will become clear later in this piece, that was in the face of an onslaught of additional work. Once Margo has got clear of the Still Not Happy John launch, and I've got clear of the OIYP Kaleidoscope and Activ8 events, we'll be able to take back some of the load.

Finances

Income in August and September was $190 in donations versus expenditure of $13 a month for bank fees, and $212 for the annual ASIC company registration fee. Cash in the bank at end September was $1164. Income from Google was US$26.68 in August and US$76.35 in September: total owing from Google for payment in October is around A$200, depending on the exchange rate on the day.

Site statistics

Published article count was 27 in August and 33 in September, from 30 in July. Published comments were 1218 in August and 1326 in September, from 1670 in July. Unique visitors to the site were up from 23,100 in July to 24,874 in September, while total visits increased were up to 48,336 from 45,585 in July.

We didn’t publish 38 abusive, content-free or incomprehensible comments in August: total comments intended for publication and not published: 38/1356=2.8%.

During August a small cabal of Webdiarists got it into their heads that Paul Morella and the banned Jay White were one and the same person, notwithstanding the fact that they live in different countries, hold different opinions and have totally different writing styles. Margo took up the accusation with Paul and after due investigation announced that she was satisfied that Paul was indeed Paul, and that although she would investigate any other similar accusations, we would not in future publish any such comments on other Webdiarist's identities. Phil Kendall submitted a number of offending comments on this, and also sent some abusive emails to Fiona and Richard, at which point Margo banned him from Webdiary. I was not around at that point, but having reviewed the material Margo based her decision on concurred with it completely.

The first half of September was characterised by a small blizzard of submitted comments, not-for-publication comments to the editors, and emails disputing this decision from Craig Rowley - 38 published, 26 not published (almost all for ignoring Margo's edict that we do not publish debate on the identity of other webdiarists), and 57 not for publication. Margo pointed out to Craig that Fiona and Richard were pretty much on their own, and she was too busy with Still Not Happy John to respond to the emails in particular, and to please try not to overload the editors until she had that time: this seemed to produce the exact opposite effect, and on 14 September she banned Craig from Webdiary for two weeks. Following Craig's email responses to that decision, Margo extended the ban indefinitely.

Over the next few days Craig created a number of other identities, including identity theft of at least one other real person. As noted above, this was at a time when both Margo and I were travelling and essentially off the net - me happily esconced in wineries and wildflowers around Margaret River, Margo travelling to Canberra for the SNHJ launch - and Fiona and Richard's equanimity and diligence over this period in the face of provocation have been praiseworthy (and are hereby praised).

The rest of you managed another 38 unpublished comments between you over the whole month: total comments intended for publication and not published: 38+26/1390=4.6%.